Core Faculty —
Ph.D.,
Yale University

Professor of American Studies; Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities #1; Executive Vice President and Provost

Contact

Interests

U.S. Cultural History of American Art; Colonial and Antebellum South; Relationship between Art and Politics; American Slavery

Biography

A former Chair of University of Virginia’s American Studies program, Maurie McInnis's interdisciplinary scholarship focuses on the relationship between politics and art in early America. Prof. McInnis’s most recent book, Slaves Waiting for Sale: Abolitionist Art and the American Slave Trade, was awarded the Charles C. Eldredge Book Prize from the Smithsonian American Art Museum for outstanding scholarship in American Art and the Library of Virginia Literary Award for non-fiction. Her scholarship has been long engaged with public history, and she has worked regularly with museums and historic sites. Expanding on the material she discussed in the book, McInnis curated “To Be Sold: Virginia and the American Slave Trade” at the Library of Virginia (Oct. 2014-May 2015). The most visited show at the Library of Virginia, it was also the first major exhibition to present to the public the story of Virginia’s role in the forced migration of nearly a million enslaved people during the antebellum period. Other essays and books have focused on the politics of representing political figures, most notably George Washington, and the material culture of antebellum Charleston. Her current work focuses on telling the history of enslavement at the University of Virginia.